Revisiting California
Market power after two years.
Armed with new data, a well-known economist discusses what really happened.
Crawling from the Wreckage
Can California’s energy market be salvaged?
The whole world watched the California energy market debacle. Now, economists talk about what it would take to rebuild California into a truly competitive power market.
The Economists: On the Future of Energy Markets
Uncertainty clouds direction of FERC’s market engineering.
The failure of California markets, Enron, and the low-point of the merchant plant business cycle has left many executives pessimistic over the prospects that true competitive markets in energy will develop. Top economists discuss the industry’s outlook.
Wag the Dog
Pack journalists feed off PG&E letter.
Was Pacific Gas and Electric’s recent customer mailing of a dog-bite letter and meter-reading schedule a selfless attempt to protect its employees from vicious canines? Or was the notice to dog owners a catty move to get the California press off the scent of Pacific Gas and Electric’s bankruptcy proceedings?
FERC At 25
A leaner bureaucracy sharpens its market-monitoring tools.
FERC turns 25 this year. With Enron’s collapse and California’s unraveled electric restructuring scheme, the silver anniversary reminiscing may be slightly muted.
Enron C&I Customers Paying Twice
Public Utilities Fortnightly and POWERdat®
Some large commercial and industrial customers who had signed energy contracts with the now-bankrupt Enron are forced to pay their utility bills a second time. "We're looking at these bills and saying, 'Hold on a minute,'" said one corporate energy manager.
Let's Be Rational About Hydrogen as a Vehicular Fuel
A response to “Forgetting Someone, Mr. Secretary?” Frontlines, Feb 1, 2002.
Mr. Stavros seems to fall into the same trap as so many of the major car manufacturers in assuming the need for a prohibitively costly infrastructure to supply this hydrogen when one already exists that offers by far the cheapest and environmentally vastly superior option—the natural gas transmission and distribution system.
People (March 15, 2002)
E2I appointed Richard H. Counihan as vice president of research programs. The MAPP management committee elected its executive committee members. The Energy Distribution Group of NiSource Inc., recently announced a management realignment. And others ...
Politically Inelastic?
Electric pricing issues are hard to overcome.
Do politicians really mean what they say when they call for competitive markets in electricity at the wholesale and retail levels? Rivals of California Gov. Gray Davis champion competitive electric markets. But what if, after elections, California markets are then fixed (with unanimous consent), and prices continue to be high? Will that politician still stand behind competitive markets?
So, You Want to be a Retail Energy Marketer?
Retail energy markets entail a unique set of risk management challenges.
As the march of retail competition, although slower, continues to move on the country, energy companies are finding they must be much more agile at managing the risks. A discussion of what energy suppliers ought to know.